Boot Issues with two versions of Ubuntu

[chazdg24]

http://paste.ubuntu.com/5680862/

I have two hard drives with Windows 7 on sda and Ubuntu 13.04 and Ubuntu 12.10 on sdb. When selecting 13.04, I get a cursor that flashes, then a message with my computer info and tty, then a login request. I ignore that and 13.04 will boot after about 20 seconds. How do I get rid of that. My plan is to wipe out 12.10 when Mint 15 comes out. I suspect I need to do something different during installation as I keep getting the same error message every time a new version comes out. Thanks for any help.

[jamesisin]

Is this a new install of 13.04? Did you run sudo update-grub yet?

[chazdg24]

Relatively new. I ran the boot repair in 12.10 as I am running the new version of Cinnamon. Before that, I was getting that message when booting into 12.10.

If I could get Cinnamon to work correctly in 13.04, I would forget about 12.10. However, it keeps freezing and screwing up Unity in the process (another issue for another post).

Edit: I took a good look at that report and noticed a reference to Windows 8. I did triple boot W7, W8 and Ubuntu 12.10 for a short time but quickly removed it and thought I restored my W7 MBR. I then did a boot repair to restore Grub. When 13.04 came out, I installed it alongside 12.10. Grub picked up all three OS's but I had the problem I mentioned above.

[chazdg24]

I am going to reply to my own thread in hopes of getting some feedback. During the installation process, should Grub be installed on the first hard drive (sda) or the second hard (sdb)? I have both 13.04 and 12.10 installed on sdb with grub installed on sda. I have read that Grub should have been installed on the second hard drive containing Ubuntu 13.04 and 12.10.

When installing a second distro sharing the swap space, is there anything I can do now regarding my current configuration? Finally, when I decide to install Mint 15 and remove 12.10, is there anything I should do differently to avoid the boot issues I described above?

Any guidance is really appreciated. Thanks!

[oldfred]

You can install grub to either MBR. To me the advantage of grub in the MBR of the same drive is that then only drive has to work to boot Ubuntu and then you can have the Windows boot loader in sda and if the Ubuntu drive fails you can at least boot Windows. I generally believe in a operating system and it boot loader in every drive. Data then can be on various drives.

You either install grub from the Linux system you are keeping or when reinstalling be sure to use manual install and choose where to install grub. Then set BIOS to boot that drive.

You can also use Boot-Repair.
Post the link to the BootInfo report that this creates. Is part of Boot-Repair:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Info
Boot Repair -Also handles LVM, GPT, separate /boot and UEFI dual boot.:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
You can repair many boot issues with this or 'Create BootInfo' report (Other Options) & post the link it creates, so we can see your exact configuration and diagnose advanced problems.
LighterWeight (Lubuntu based) Boot-RepairCD
http://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/files/

[jamesisin]

If you are running a multiboot system you can use a single swap partition for multiple swapping operating systems. This is due to the fact that they will not be accessing the swap partition at the same time. You just have to specify partitions at install and point swap to the already existing swap partition. I believe it is possible to change a current swap pointer but perhaps someone else here could point you to a tutorial as I don't know of one.

[chazdg24]

You can also use Boot-Repair.
Post the link to the BootInfo report that this creates. Is part of Boot-Repair:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Info

That is what I did. It is in post #1. Any advice to deal with this issue is appreciated. Thanks guys!

http://paste.ubuntu.com/5680862/

[oldfred]

So grub from sdb works ok?
I would just install Windows boot loader to sda, so you can boot with that. You can use a Windows repairCD or flash but need to set BIOS to boot sda before repair.
Not sure if Boot-Repair offers to just install a Windows boot loader to sda. It uses the syslinux boot loader.
But you can install lilo which also works like the Windows boot loader.

Restore basic windows boot loader - universe enabled if error on lilo not found
Simply open Synaptic and Settings > Repositories and tick the box against the Universe repo in the Ubuntu Software tab. Close that window and click on reload before installing lilo with Synaptic or command line.
sudo apt-get install lilo
sudo lilo -M /dev/sda mbr
May show error messages about the rest of lilo missing, ignore, we just want MBR with bootloader.

You also have a lot of kernels. It may be time to house clean. I prefer to just use synaptic, some have posted scripts or just use command line.

Check current kernel I also keep one older just in case:
#Current kernel:
uname -a
# kernels
dpkg --list | grep linux-image


In synaptic search for linux-image to choose to delete old ones
Also command line in post #8
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1283521

[chazdg24]

So grub from sdb works ok?
I would just install Windows boot loader to sda, so you can boot with that. You can use a Windows repairCD or flash but need to set BIOS to boot sda before repair.
Not sure if Boot-Repair offers to just install a Windows boot loader to sda. It uses the syslinux boot loader.
But you can install lilo which also works like the Windows boot loader.

Restore basic windows boot loader - universe enabled if error on lilo not found
Simply open Synaptic and Settings > Repositories and tick the box against the Universe repo in the Ubuntu Software tab. Close that window and click on reload before installing lilo with Synaptic or command line.
sudo apt-get install lilo
sudo lilo -M /dev/sda mbr
May show error messages about the rest of lilo missing, ignore, we just want MBR with bootloader.

You also have a lot of kernels. It may be time to house clean. I prefer to just use synaptic, some have posted scripts or just use command line.

Check current kernel I also keep one older just in case:
#Current kernel:
uname -a
# kernels
dpkg --list | grep linux-image


In synaptic search for linux-image to choose to delete old ones
Also command line in post #8
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1283521

I knew I would hear about the kernel issue! You are right about the house cleaning.

You would know much more than I do, but from that report, it appears that Grub is installed in both sda and sdb. Am I wrong? What I don't understand is why I need to install lilo. I don't get how that would repair the Windows universal boot loader (is that the cause of my error message when booting into 13.04?). Wouldn't the Windows 7 installation do the same (obviously wiping out Grub which is easy enough to fix). Further, I thought Grub was superior or is that not the case.

I hate to be a pest, but I am trying to gain as much knowledge as possible so I don't repeat the same errors in the future. Thanks!

Edit: I take that back, the Windows bootloader is installed on both drives. How did that happen? I never had Windows installed on sdb. Is Grub installed on both drives or just sda? I'm quite confused.

[oldfred]

Last BootInfo showed grub2's boot loader in every MBR. Are you just looking at boot flags?

Syslinux and lilo are boot loaders that work just like Windows in MBR. But to boot Windows you only install the MBR part and not any of the rest of the boot loader for Lilo or syslinux.
The Windows code in the MBR just looks at partition table and finds primary partition with boot flag and jumps to the PBR or partition boot sector to find more boot code. And what is in PBR is then booted.
Actually lilo works a bit better than Windows as you can boot XP in a logical partition. Lilo boots from logical partitions but part of the Windows boot loader only checks primary partitions and will not let you boot from logicals.

Multibooters, Pictures here worth 1000+ words
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html